Today's Thought (Martin Dewhurst)

Martin Dewhurst's Penny-On!

Can you imagine a world that works for everyone? Young people can and they're about to show us all how!

Penny On is simply about all of us working together in communities towards common goals. The campaign is being led by young people in partnership with schools, communities, charities, businesses and retailers. The simple Penny On mechanism enables us all to assist in the delivery of the Millennium Development Goals 1 penny at a time.

Penny On is something we can all do, with little effort, without even noticing, to provide an inclusive and sustainable resource to projects that tackle the local and global issue of poverty and our fragile environment.

If it all sounds very simple. It's because it is.

Here's the idea
Add just 1 penny onto every product purchased world-wide.  

Here's how it works
Imagine millions of people choosing to add a penny on at the till.

This is what it could do
Generate £100m + every day to end local and global poverty - shared equally between local and global causes.

Who's involved?
We all can be -  You, your friends, your community, local and international businesses are all a vital part of this simple solution.

How you can help
If you run a business be a leader in *GSR and register as a BSPO (Business Supporting Penny On)
If you run a school contact us for news of our development programme
If you run a voluntary organisation contact us with details of your projects that focus on empowering people

And ...

If you like the idea of feeling good every day and giving as you shop ...
Get ready to vote with your penny!

*GSR (Global Social Responsibility) is a collaboration between businesses, consumers and voluntary sector agencies.

2. Why did you choose the penny as a monetary denomination upon which to focus - does the penny have both a practical and philosophical significance.

3. So, do you typically go into a community to directly alleviate community's need or to indirectly address that need by coming up with solutions to tackle that community greatest challenge?

4.  Martin how do you decide who within a given community has the greater need....demographically....who are the ones you are compelled to help first?

5. You are suggesting that there are people who are financially wealthy yet are poor and impoverished in spirit or inspiration; they can't realize the joy of inner prosperity until they have an opportunity to give something away, and then they are healed. Can you talk more about that?

6. Martin you emailed me and during our correspondance you explained some new agricultural technologies that could have positive impact in certain geographic regions where growing crops is essentially impossible.

I am going to quote you here. And said:

"Bryan, I then spent years researching to find a solution that they could own and in turn provide the world with their knowldge and wisdom. I found this in a process called Permaculture this it turns out has also been used to green the desert in Jordan , which takes 5,000 people of aid and into sustainable self sufficiency."

Please tell us something about this Permacult?

7. Back to permaculture, Martin, exactly what is your role in advocating this new agricultural method? Did you have to bring a team of scientist with you to prove that permaculture works?